Homegrown non-alcoholic spirits brand, Lyre’s, is one of the first local start-up’s being given a leg up through the newly launched platform, Amazon Launchpad.
Lyre’s Co-founder, Mark Livings, is understandably thrilled by the partnership and told National Liquor News that it will put the brand “years ahead” in terms of marketing.
“We get access immediately to Amazon’s captive and engaged audience. To build one from scratch is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming exercise. Amazon Launchpad overcomes this immediately and puts us years ahead in terms of helping us get the word out about Lyre’s, especially to Amazon’s users who are keen to support smaller businesses and local brands,” he said.
In terms of driving brand awareness and trial, the Amazon Launchpad platform is invaluable.
With Amazon Launchpad, local start-ups and entrepreneurs can use Amazon’s retail expertise and infrastructure to share their stories and grow their businesses, overcoming many of the challenges associated with bringing products to market.
At launch, more than 150 local and international brands will feature on the Australian Amazon Launchpad store. Participants will benefit from custom product pages on the new Amazon.com.au Launchpad store, marketing support and access to Amazon’s local fulfilment network including Amazon Prime.
Livings continued: “It also means that given that we’ve got a mature, efficient way to deliver our product D2C via Amazon, we can channel out precious marketing funds into marketing, rather than having to undertake a complex and expensive e-commerce build of our own on day one.”
Lyre’s is one of two drinks brands being featured on the Amazon Launchpad platform. The other is naturally sugar free drink brand, Nexba. Lyre’s and Nexba sit alongside other homegrown brands like Salt Gypsy, Vitaman and Soda Shades.
Rocco Braeuniger, Country Manager for Amazon Australia, said he’s excited to give local businesses more freedom to focus on innovation.
“Australian inventors and entrepreneurs are responsible for some of the most innovative consumer products in the world from the electric drill right through to Vegemite. We’re excited to work with the next-generation of local entrepreneurs on bringing their innovative products to millions of customers – from Lyre’s Non Alcoholic Sprits Co, through to sustainable swimwear brand, Salt Gypsy from Byron Bay.
“We know that product creation is only one part of the equation in launching a product and that marketing, logistics and finding an audience can be just as challenging. With Amazon Launchpad, we have a program that will help ease some of these challenges for start-ups and entrepreneurs alike, allowing them to focus on growing their businesses and freeing up time for future innovation.”
Livings hopes that the Amazon Launchpad platform will help bolster Lyre’s to the front of what is a quickly growing drinks category.
“We’re a new brand, in a fast-growth, disruptive category that’s not yet been embraced in full by some traditional retailers and by many on-premise operators here in Australia.
“With the traditional channels moving far slower than the rate of consumer adoption, there’s a clear availability gap. We’re still seeing data from the US that shows the e-commerce sales of non-alcoholic spirits are dominating traditional retail and on-premise sales by over 300 per cent in volume terms. That’s an incredible statistic, and as such for Lyre’s, it’s very important to us that we remain available and that people can find us, particularly given the amount of focus and attention our brand and the category generally are getting.
“Amazon’s richer product listing capabilities through Launchpad gives us additional tools to separate our brand from the pack. We get to uniquely make use of video and our brand is given a dedicated mini-site within Amazon; both are really important for us so we can help people understand how to use the product, and aid them in exploring our range.”
Lyre’s is continuing to gain momentum in Australia and more information about the range is available on the Lyre’s Spirits Co website and the range is available through Swift & Moore.
